Saturday, 19 September 2015

The Joys of Norwich

At the Sainsbury Institute in Norwich on Thursday night. After delivering my talk on Yukio Mishima in the fabulous location of the cathedral hostry (pictured above), I took some questions from the floor. The first hand raised began as follows:

'I met Mishima five times and interviewed him for the BBC in 1962....'

How many people in the world can preface a question in such a way? The person asking the question was the poet and critic Anthony Thwaite - 85 years young - who regaled me at the reception afterwards with stories such as the time that Mishima asked him to recommend a 'gay gymnasium' in London. Unfortunately back in the early 1960s Anthony had absolutely no idea what the word 'gay' meant...

Many thanks to everyone at the Sainsbury Institute for a wonderful evening. The beautiful, medieval town of Norwich itself is a veritable delight to visit.